I Made a Hardwood Pokéball

The ball has four different parts, which are the top red section, the mid black section, the bottom white section, and the button. For each part, I used different woods to mimic the Pokeball color. The diameter of the final product is 70mm.

Step 1: Material & Tools

Material:

African Padauk (red part)

Ash, white (white)

black walnut black)

tools:

drill press

bandsaw

wood lathe

Step 2: Rough Cut the Material

The first thing you need to do is drill a hole in the middle of the wood. The hole should be the size which can fit your wood lathe. You should not go through either the red and white wood to achieve a half sphere. But you need to drill through the black section.

After that, you can roughly cut the wood to the round shape so that it can be easy to work on the lathe.

Step 3: Turn the Mid Section

This walnut piece is 65mm in diameter and 5mm in thickness.

Step 4: Turn the Red and White Parts

I didn't have any sphere jig to work with. So the shape might not be perfect.

Step 5: Glue Together

Get a wood stick which has the same diameter of the hole. Since you already have drilled the hole. You can just glue these parts together.

Step 6: Make the Button

Now it's time to make the little button. It has two parts. A walnut outside part and an ash inside part.

Step 7: Drill the Hole on the Ball

It's really hard to drill a big hole in the ball. So I made this jig. It's just two piece of plywood and three long screws and nuts. But its very useful for this kind of purpose. I clamp the jig to the workspace of the drill press. Make sure that everything is tight and not move.

Before drilled the big hole, you can pre-drill a smaller one for guiding.

Step 8: Insert the Button

Glue together these two parts and use a vise to press it to tight.

Step 9: Finish

Finish it with wax and oil. Enjoy your wood Pokeball and go catch some Pokemon!

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9 Discussions

Very nice! I especially like the jig for holding the ball while drilling. I had the same problem with one of my projects (https://www.instructables.com/id/Home-Defense-Mace...) a while back and used a five sided box a tiny bit bigger than the diameter of the ball and put screws in the center of each side with the top open for the drill. It worked pretty well but my final product was going to have holes in it anyway so the screws didn't matter. Maybe you could find some modifications if your looking for a different way. I didn't even think of trying your jig method but I will try it in the future. Good Job!